


revisionist history

by ndnickerson



Series: Chuck S3 AU [2]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Christmasfic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:10:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Chuck's first Christmas without Morgan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	revisionist history

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/)'s [Porn Battle](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/10575.html); you can also find the story in its natural habitat [here](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/10575.html?view=968783#t968783). Spoilers for all aired episodes, through Season 2. Includes sex, as you might have guessed.

It's Chuck's first Christmas without Morgan, and it's really getting to him. Sarah knows this because Chuck will do patently stupid things like turn to Casey while the three of them are on a stakeout and say something like "Remember when he was roleplaying with you and asking where the Ramones were?" and Casey just grunts and caresses the handle of his piece like he wants to splatter Chuck's internal organs all over the digital voice transponder. Which he probably does. Casey is many things (_burnout, hothead, mercenary_), but subtle is not one of them.

"It's gonna be okay." Sarah pats Chuck's back as they trudge up the stairs to their apartment.

"It's just... you know, I feel like _this_," and Chuck waves his hands, "just kept getting in the way, he wanted to hang out but there were always missions, and then he was _gone_, and do you know, he's come over for Christmas every year since we were eight?" Chuck kicks his shoes off as soon as Sarah has closed the door behind them. "We had a stocking for him. Ellie still has it. We give him Lego Star Wars figures and licorice." Chuck sighs and drops heavily onto the couch, unclipping his gun. She's a little surprised. He hates the gun so much that usually he has it unclipped, safety on, and holstered on the kitchen counter before she even has the door deadbolted.

Except there was that time last month when Ring agents were waiting for them here, and as for her, well, she only unholsters her knives when she goes to sleep.

Most of the time, anyway.

Sarah pours Chuck a soda and soon he has his feet up on the coffee table, watching some news report about next year's big-ticket video game franchise releases, but his expression never entirely clears.

Chuck was right. Sarah has never has a friend like he has Morgan. And despite what he says, Chuck doesn't count, because she's damn sure Chuck never picked out lingerie for Morgan. Not willingly, at least. And, despite Sarah's generally sour feelings about holidays in general and Christmas especially, the Bartowski enthusiasm is hard to dampen. For God's sake, they even have a Twilight Zone drinking game. Last year Ellie had been blitzed by seven o'clock and was slurringly insistent that Morgan put on an elf cap and dance a jig. For the rest of the night, until she had tilted drunkenly but quite happily into Devon's arms to be carted off to bed, she had called him her little leprechaun, and Chuck had snorted, and Morgan had just nodded very seriously and teased Ellie about a pot of gold and misplacing his lucky charms.

Thankfully Devon had confiscated Ellie's car keys before she could fixate on the idea of marshmallow-sprinkled cereal and stagger drunkenly into the parking lot in search of a box.

Chuck isn't the best spy in the world, and that's why Sarah (damn it) loves him. He's not ruthless. He gets quiet and introspective and very serious in the rare event that he actually has to fire the gun Casey spent so many exasperated hours teaching him to use. He cracks jokes in her ear when they're separated on missions, still has two left feet, and, under pressure, he tends to babble exactly what's on his mind. The new Intersect has only complicated things, and the old Intersect just robbed him of time he could have spent with a friend.

And Bryce is dead so Sarah's the one who ends up feeling somehow responsible.

Besides, she kind of misses Morgan too. Chuck was actually himself when he was with Morgan, and without him, and with Ellie married, living with her in this CIA-financed apartment, she's not sure if even he knows who he is anymore.

"Hey," she says, tipping forward, resting her elbows on the counter, and Chuck turns to look at her. That slow little melt she's felt since the first time their eyes met is still there, but she'll never be used to it. "Let's just get out and do something today. Casey says we're free."

"We're never free." Chuck quirks a half-smile at her. "What'd you have in mind?"

\--

She wears a flippy little skirt, the kind favored by carhops and cheerleaders, and long knee socks, and at the rental window she opts for black speed skates. "Should've known," Chuck groans good-naturedly, forking over the cash for their rentals.

Even though it's Christmas Eve, the rink is still popular. Teenaged girls giggle and roll their eyes at the old-fashioned music, toddlers whine as they clomp on their bright plastic skates, and the concessions stand smells like watery mint-flavored hot chocolate. As Sarah tucks her purse into a locker she sees a woman leave her own purse unattended, struggling to get her little boy's foot into his skate, and thinks about her own dad. Everyone's too trusting. And she could pickpocket that woman in two seconds flat. Instead, she keeps an eye on the woman until she has her purse tucked safely under her arm again, and then Chuck is lacing his fingers around Sarah's, and if Sarah's father could see him now, "schmoop" would be too good for him.

Sarah takes Chuck's other hand and skates backward, trusting him to keep her from crashing into someone. He shakes his head a few times, then smiles. Apparently the new Intersect didn't come with skating techniques, either. That, or he doesn't have the adrenaline rush his flashes sometimes require.

"Thanks."

She gives him a little shrug. "Nothing says Christmas like whiny toddlers and rented shoes, right?"

"And you said you weren't funny," he deadpans, gently guiding her so she'll know when to turn, effortlessly moving her around a pair of crashed teenage boys. "No, I mean it. It's just... everything's different this year. And it would be great if he was here."

"I know." She squeezes his hands. The DJ announces a couples skate and turns on the disco ball, and Bing Crosby starts singing "White Christmas," and Sarah can only see Chuck's face when the reflection glances over it.

"Hey, Sarah?"

"Hmm?"

"When... when you were little, growing up, did you ever see a white Christmas? Wake up and there was snow on the ground?"

He grew up in southern California, so to him it's just a miracle; Sarah knows that waking up Christmas morning to snow outside can mean a miserable day spent shivering because Dad didn't have the money to keep the heat turned on.

"Yeah," she says, and tips forward to kiss him. And then he stumbles a little and her skate catches on the half-wall and they end up tangled, with her pinned under him, the breath knocked out of her.

"Sorry," Chuck says, but there's a smile in his voice.

That's another thing she (damn it) loves, that even after so long, the lightest kiss can still turn him weak-kneed.

\--

The traffic snarls the interstate, like she knew it would, and they have to get back in time to make it to Ellie's for dinner. Sarah's tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently pumping the brakes, when she feels a breeze over her inner thighs. She glances down in time to see her skirt flip down, and Chuck's gazing innocently through the windshield, twiddling his thumbs.

"Chuck?" Her tone is dangerous.

"I was just... settling a bet."

"A bet with who?"

"Uh... myself."

"About whether I was wearing underwear?"

"Not really. Not exactly."

"What, then?"

He's not looking at her. "Uh, which pair it was."

Sarah shakes her head. "Boys," she mutters, aggressively switching lanes just in time to see that one sputter to a stop. Of course.

"You seem tense."

"Really," she replies, but most of the annoyance in her tone is for show. Chuck very rarely makes the first move, when it comes to their very careful, very... quiet sex life. Just something else he can never acknowledge, that she can never acknowledge, even though she's seen the way his eyes burn with jealousy when she has to pick up a mark on a mission, and seeing it always turns her on, just a little. Bryce had always been too professional to be jealous, and when he was, it never lasted long.

And then she feels Chuck's hand sliding up her thigh. "What—"

"Just trying to help you relax," he says, with the bland innocence of a devil. He rubs one finger up and down the crotch of her panties, following the seam of her lips, lightly until he hits the top, pressing down before he starts again. His nails are short but when he drags them over the cotton, her toes curl, her every nerve going sensitive and brilliant. When he plucks at the waistband she stands on the brakes, letting him inch her panties down over her hips, shoving them down her legs herself and just barely managing to avoid hitting the car in front of her.

He puts his hand under her skirt and cups her, his long fingers massaging her bare flesh. His fingertip follows the same path again, lightly tracing up and down the seam of her barely parted lips, and she lets out a low sigh.

"You okay?" He's always so concerned about her. It would be insulting if he were anyone else, but that's just the way he is.

"Never better."

The Agency, of course, doesn't, can't frown on masturbation, and that's all this is, really, she tells herself, as Chuck crooks one finger and slides it up between her lips, barely, not at all really touching her clit, just close enough to make her shiver at the thought of it. He slips it back out and cups her again, hard, the press of his fingers enough to rub her clit against bone, and she arches in her seat, her vision swimming. The next time he drives, she knows the statistics but to hell with it, she's going to unzip his pants and suck him off.

If she ever let him drive. Which she doesn't.

But this might just be enough incentive.

The line of cars in front of her begins a slow doomed crawl and Chuck slides his index finger all the way inside her, all the way to the knuckle, and crooks it, and Sarah has to bite her lip to keep from crying out. He slides it out and thrusts it in one more time, then draws it up to her clit, just gently pressing against it before he strokes it for the first time, and she groans, her hands tightening on the steering wheel, stomping the brake harder than she should with her left foot so she can keep her legs open to him.

"Feeling more relaxed?"

"No," she croaks out, bracing her shoulders against the back of her seat. "Not really."

"That's a shame. Did you know, I always wanted a white Christmas," he says, a little wistfully, as he slides three fingers up inside her, rubbing her clit with his thumb, and her mouth falls open, her hips just barely rocking as he begins to thrust. "Snow men, snow cream, snow angels. An actual reason to wear something heavier than a t-shirt." His fingers are shifting, drawing a circle inside her, and he runs his thumbnail against the tip of her clit, and she sucks in a hard breath. "We used to watch A Christmas Story, and it wasn't the official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle, it was the snow I wanted. It made everyone happy."

She twists her hips in the seat, realizing that the car in front of her has started moving only when she hears the horn of the car behind theirs, arching to give Chuck a better angle as he fucks her with his fingers, his long fingers, her nipples stiff against her bra. She hits the gas too hard, stomps the brake, panting out his name, feeling his fingers slide in and out, in and out of her, so hard she feels raw, the pressure building, his thumb flicking her clit hard. Her shoulders jerk and she bears down against him, fucking him in return, trying to pin his hand under her, trying to ride him until she comes.

"It doesn't," she gasps out. "It just hides everything, oh God don't stop, please don't stop, Chuck, please don't stop."

"Yeah," he agrees, and he's leaning over the seat, gently catching her earlobe in his teeth. "Come for me, Sarah, come, I want to feel it," he whispers, and she lets out a sob as she does, his fingers stilling inside her as she comes like waves, hard, shivering with every slight movement of his thumb against her clit. She shifts into the high-speed lane, imagining the gearshift is Chuck's cock, her thumb circling the knob of the head. She would return the favor but they'd never get it out of the upholstery and she's having enough trouble concentrating as it is.

"Yeah, I think I'm relaxed now," she murmurs.

\--

They're ten minutes late because they had to shower once they got back to the apartment, the inside of her thighs and his fingers were still slick with her, and, well, he was already hard, and besides, they've been living together for six months, sleeping together for five and a half, and she's beginning to think that if the Agency doesn't know it by now, they don't deserve her. So now, when he fucks her in their tiny stand-up shower stall, she lets herself quietly moan his name, her back against the cold tile, his brown-eyed gaze steady and dancing as he holds her own.

And that's okay, because she still thinks it's kind of hilarious that Chuck shuffles his feet a little as they wait for Ellie and Awesome to answer his knock. It's their _cover_, for God's sake, it's okay, everyone on Earth is supposed to think they're sleeping together.

Even though nothing has been less a cover in her life.

And Awesome opens the door because Ellie is sitting with Morgan on the couch, and Chuck's eyes, his entire face lights up at the sight of him. They hug and babble and Morgan's beaming, almost shaking with excitement.

Twilight Zone is on. The shot glasses are already out. Awesome pats Sarah on the back after their only slightly awkward greeting hug.

"Looking good tonight, future sister-in-law."

And that's cover too. She only has the energy for one Christmas miracle this year, and he's on the couch, sandwiched between Ellie and Chuck, using complicated hand motions to describe the proper way to toss knives.

And Morgan's the reason that Casey didn't break open a door at a Barstow motel just to find her having sex with Chuck, she figured out, when she found his crumpled IOU on the bathroom floor right after Chuck left for more condoms.

God, she would never have lived that down.

When Morgan gives Sarah a hug and gazes up at her, saying _Tell the truth, tell me you've been taking care of Chuck,_ she just nods and smiles at him. That's the whole reason he's here. And when she says that she missed him too, she isn't lying. She likes who Chuck is with Morgan, and Morgan has always been supportive of their fake/real/cover relationship.

Except that one damn IOU, the one Chuck cursed a hundred times as he pulled his pants on and found his shoes, in that motel room.

The IOU she keeps tucked in her own wallet, now, like some bizarre souvenir.

The next episode is the one with the little boy and the cornfield, and that puts the three of them over, since they'd started before Chuck and Sarah arrived. Sarah goes to the kitchen for another bottle of rum and feels Chuck's hand at the small of her back, just as she notices the mistletoe above the kitchen sink.

"Sarah, thanks, thank you so much, I mean it," he says, and he's so earnest that she feels uncomfortable and wants to laugh it off, but instead she smiles and stands up on her tiptoes and lets her mouth fall open, just that little bit. It's like child's play.

Except that when he kisses her, it's _him,_ not just another lie they have to sell, and she melts against him, the rum bottle clenched tight in her fist, feeling a little self-conscious, the flesh between her thighs still tender and achingly aware of him.

"Thanks," he murmurs into her mouth, lingering until Awesome's appreciative calls draw them reluctantly apart.

And as she stands alone in the kitchen she realizes that she would undo it all, if it meant this life could be hers.


End file.
